14 JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 



Marsh was ordered to prosecute the work with the greatest possible 

 vigor. 



The summer, fall, and winter were occupied in carrying out 

 his order. At one time a Prussian officer was sent by General Fre- 

 mont to take charge of the work, but as he could not speak English 

 and was a very old man, he occupied himself in the construction 

 of a small fort which could perhaps cover three or four hundred 

 men at most, and Lieutenant Powell went on with the construction 

 of a system of works inclosing the city. 



After a time, Captain (afterwards Colonel) Fladd, who had 

 been engaged on the works at St. Louis, and was an accomplished 

 engineer, came down and took charge, and he made Lieutenant 

 Powell his assistant, a good school of engineering for the young 

 lieutenant. Altogether the works were on an extensive scale, and 

 many thousand men were employed. When General Grant took 

 command, some time in the early winter, the operations of this 

 character were limited to the completion of a part of the work 

 already under way; and the entire plan was never fully executed. 



Oive day General Grant came up from Cairo to inspect the 

 works, and Lieutenant Powell rode with him two or three hours ; 

 and after the ride was over he invited the young soldier to take 

 supper with him on his boat. After supper, Lieutenant Powell 

 said to the General that he desired a leave of absence for one week, 

 and frankly told him that he had been engaged to a young lady in 

 Detroit for a long time, and that he wished to go home to get mar- 

 ried, and would return in a week. The General gave him the leave 

 of absence ; he went to Detroit, arrived there about six o'clock in 

 the evening, was immediately married to Miss Emma Dean of that 

 city, and started on the train at eight o'clock with his bride on the 

 return to Girardeau. 



Their wedding journey was to the Seat of War in the south- 

 west, a moveable grand division, with its " headquarters" as apt 

 to be in the saddle as in the fields of Kentucky or Tennessee ; it 

 then being under the leadership of that great Captain of the cul- 

 minating victory who in taking Fort Donaldson, introduced to the 

 world the leaders of the waiting hosts east and west. 



Not a very delightful situation this for a "honey-moon" but 

 Mrs. Powell had heroic blood in her veins, and she followed the 

 army without hesitation, bearing the inevitable inconveniences and 

 privations of camp-life with womanly fortitude; one of the ways in 

 which the sex stimulated the other half of the world to do their 

 duty as men, and show their own valor through privations and 



